I absolutely agree. As a collorary collorary, I would suggest the person telling the person who they think is the first person to accuse others of being hysterical should read the thread to make sure they don’t end up calling the person hysterical they didn’t actually intend to call hysterical.
YWTH, meet monstro.
Get a room, you two.
Is it that you don’t see the racial implications of the image, or is it that you can’t understand how anyone could? It’s one thing to at first see sprinters exactly how the company intended, but it’s hard to ignore that plenty of folks will, and have, reacted differently to it.
I saw the image of of 6 black men bowing their heads in the presence of a white man, because that’s what the image is. Chalk me up on the “What were they thinking?” side of this poll.
Did you think I was alluding to you?
If so, guess again.
ETA: Ah ha, I see that my collorary applies to my dear monstro!
This is not suprising, as I have it on a good authority that she is locked up in an insane asylum. I promise to come visit you one of these days, girlie. Just as soon as I get my bus ticket to Milledgeville.
I posted earlier in this thread. Go back and read it again. Slowly.
I had to think about it too. The first thing I saw was sprinters. Their knees aren’t even on the ground! What kind of grovelling is that? When I looked for the offense, I saw sex too, but it wasn’t from the back. I thought the IT guy was getting “thanked” by the workers or something.
Fess up. You lost your job over this didn’t you?
I’m in the “didn’t see that first, but saw it later 'cause people are talking about it and yeah I can see that” block.
I’m not ignoring anyone. Hello, I just responded to you, Mr. Contrary-to-my-opinion.
Sorry, I don’t know if you’re a Mr. You might be a Miss, Mrs, or Ms.
I so suck at this stuff. Didn’t I say I don’t work in the ad biz???
Where, exactly, has criticism been leveled against Dopers who saw the intended meaning?
You’re hysterical.
It’s all good, Lev, I was just asking the question. And I’m a Mister. 
I guess I should pose the question not just to you, but to anyone who felt that seeing the racial image was far fetched. Who feels that seeing racism here is looking too deeply into it. I personally don’t think you have to look deeply into that image to see 6 black men bowing before a white man, because that is what the core of the image is. Before or after that, recognizing them as sprinters in an office doesn’t change the image.
Maybe they should have used these guys as the sprinters instead.
I suppose you think it’s funny to lampoon Azure-Americans like that.
A company has to own what goes out in its name, but they did seem to have caught it. If I had never missed anything in my life, then maybe I’d want to blame them.
I’ll fess up - it was an AT&T illo, but I don’t think it was an ad. Someone took the internal magazine and showed it to people outside and you might have seen it there.
When I lived in Africa in 1961-2, even at 10 I knew monkey was not a word you used. A high ranking UN person used it to an African subordinate, and got his ass kicked out of the country. Again, the artist was no doubt thinking wildlife, not people, but the damage was done.
I guess I don’t look at print ads that closely. I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought as I was flipping through the magazine. And I certainly wouldn’t have sat there trying to intepret the meanings.
I honestly didn’t see what the big deal was at first. It’s like an optical illusion…at first you don’t see it, then when you finally recognize it, you can’t “unsee” it.
Huh…you’re right. The white button down tucked into the khaki’s and my brain said “suit”.
My first impression was, “sloppy execution of the ad.” But, since I’m an art director myself at a company where unfortunately everything is done by committee, I started to imagine the following scenario:
(scene: Meeting room with top execs and the marketing department people in attendance. Designers and art directors are absent.)
Exec James: We need a new ad campaign, something that emphasizes the enhanced speed of our product.
Marketing dept monkey (MDM): OK, let’s brainstorm a bit…let’s see, what’s fast…? Bullets? No, too violent…Trains? No, too many instances of late departures and such. Aircraft? Well, not unless we use military jets and that’s too violent again…cheetahs or gazelles or rabbits? Maybe that would work…
Exec James: We want a HUMAN element. Jenkins, tell them about the article you read.
Exec Jenkins: People relate better to human people. I read it.
MDM: OK…uh…athletes? Maybe sprinters?
Exec James: Hmmmm…better. Show me a comp in an hour.
MDM: AN HOU-I mean, sure. No problem. What’s our budget on this one?
Exec James: $1000, not counting buying the ad space.
MDM: gulp
(Scene: Art department. The marketing department monkey is talking to a designer.)
MDM: We need a new ad campaign to show off how fast our hardware is. Put sprinters in an office environment and we’ll take care of the copy.
Design Monkey: OK, is there any other direction for this?
MDM: You’re the creative one! Work your magic!
Design Monkey: OK, so I’ll need to set up a photo shoot…wait, what the budget on this one?
MDM: (knowing that if he comes in under budget he will look good) Um…$700.
Design Monkey: (pisses self) and HOW soon do you need this?
MDM: (knowing that if he’s early he will look good) 45 minutes.
Design Monkey: (has dry heaves) OH MY GAWD
(montage of Design Monkey searching Veer, Getty Images, Jupiter Images, etc. in an attempt to find images of a sprinter that will work. She picks an image of a black sprinter in the starting block. At the same time she begs her co-worker to pose for a quick photo of himself standing in the middle of a row of cubicles looking “confident”. He agrees. Fifteen minutes later MDM returns frantically asking about the comp.)
Design Monkey: It’s printing now!
MDM: You stayed within budget, right?
Design Monkey: I took one photo myself and the other photo will be well under the budget limit.
MDM: Excellent.
(Scene: meeting room with same occupants as before. MDM has the comp mounted on foam core and on an easel.)
Exec James: There aren’t enough athletes. We want to encourage people to buy LOTS of our product. Fill up every one of those open spaces with sprinters.
MDM: No problem! How soon do you want to see a revised comp?
Exec James: An hour. We want to get this campaign launched in the next issue so we need to get the files to press by the end of the day.
MDM: (pisses self) No problem!
(scene: Art department. MDM has explained the latest requested design change.)
Design Monkey: But if I get images of sprinters for EACH space I’ll be over budget…AND it may take a while longer to find images that will work with the lighting and pose and angle…!
MDM: You have Photoshop, right? Just duplicate the sprinter and put him in each open space. Don’t worry, it’s just a comp, we can show them the concept and they’ll expand the budget to enable you to buy more photos or set up a photo shoot.
Design Monkey: Well…OK.
A lot of history has indeed been erased. Who in Britian pitches a fit when Norwegians are seen with weapons or in boats?
“God deliver us from the fury of the Norsemen,” indeed. A thousand years is plenty to erase history.
Guess what? I just got a Dell mini-catalog, and what do you think is in it? You guessed it.
I showed my wife and her first reaction, without any hint or prodding was, “Is Intel stupid?!”
Kind of merging different issues here - I said previously that I thought the image would be equally offensive if the runners (in that specific pose) were women, or white, or any other race.
I don’t think anyone here has argued that this is proof of racism on the part of anyone involved in the project.
The question is whether the image is offensive. About half the people here said “yes”.
IMO, the only potentially “racist” aspect of the ad is dependent on the interpretation that the athletes are bowing to a white master, which I think is stretching it a bit. If anything, it is a cliche or stereotype (the superior black athlete in particular) but I fail to see how crediting a group of people with superior physical ability is actually racist.
